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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 



This volume is one of a limited edition of 250 
copies printed for complimentary distribution 
only, in the absence of the author in war work. 
The sonnets were largely completed before the 
entry of the United States into the War, but have 
subsequently been somewhat rearranged. 

Tee Publishers 



THE PURSUIT 
OF HAPPINESS 

BY 

BENJAMIN R. C. LOW 

AUTHOR OF 

"THE HOUSE THAT WAS AND OTHER POEMS" 

"THE SAILOR WHO HAS SAILED AND OTHER POEMS" 

AND 

"A WAND AND STRINGS AND OTHER POEMS" 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 

MCMXVIII 






Copyright, 1918, 
By JOHN LANE COMPANY 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Co. 

New York, U. S. A. 



M -3 18!9 
©G!.A508914 



TO 



MY LITERARY FATHER CONFESSOR 

AND 

GENIAL FRIEND 

THOMAS WALSH 



THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 



THE 
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 



There is a beauty, after all is said, 
Unreached forever. Not when music dies, 
And earth dissolves in rapture of deep 

sighs ; 
Not by the dance, down glades of moon- 
light fled; 
Nor poetry, echoing death-chants to the 

dead. 
Is it unveiled: and yet, so near it lies, 
The lonely wanderer feels its faunlike 

eyes. 
And almost has it — by a turn of head. 
A rainbow spirit, tokened with unrest. 
It brushes wings, indues its deity, 
For half a glimpsing-time; and then — is 

flown, 
A vanishing of rose leaves through the 

West, 
A shining prevalence wasting on a blown, 
Blue distance of impermanent sea. 
9 



II 



Who, in tall ships, intrepid, from the land 
Into the sunrise haste the stars away, 
Buoyant, beyond the sallow sweet of hay, 
Warm, still, with afternoon; beyond the 

bland. 
Broad peaceful haven where are white 

sails fanned 
Soft, through the twilight; out upon the 

grey. 
Adventurous blind deep; they, truly, they 
The wonders of the Most High under- 
stand. 
Yet, as in yore was homesick Charlemagne, 
Upon the brink of his own fairest France, 
Haunted by echoes which the Pyrenees 
Spoke him, of Roland's horn far back in 

Spain, — 
Ever and ever, over all the seas, 
Float the faint bugles of love's variance. 



II 



Ill 



Like the soft changes in a woman's eyes 
Beside the fire, who, dreamingly with- 
drawn 
Down distant by-ways where her youth has 

gone. 
Now, chin in hand, makes happy enter- 
prise 
Of memory; or like first spring that hies, 
With shadows of sweet April, up the lawn; 
So is the sea, immediate with dawn, — 
With one plumed planet scanning the proud 

skies. 
Into the deep subsides the living dark. 
And over it, just breathing, breaks the 

rose; 
Then a white wave-top, washing the far 

rim. 
Wakes, and the sea is lonely for one 

bark; — 
Lonely as beauty, lonely as love to him 
Who, fain to follow, knows not where it 
goes. 

13 



IV 



To meet sea mornings, leaning from the 

bow, 
Idly, I've wantoned many an airy hour 
With pretty iris wreaths of sun and shower, 
Where sheared through briny acres the 

sharp prow; 
And in mid-ocean, following that plough, 
Watched the slow curling of its built-up 

power 
Ripen a blue past April's; loose a flower 
Rarer than earth-born ever budded bough. 
Even as sorrow, holden from the light 
A long, long while, in sudden, swift sur- 
prise 
Looks forth, relinquishing, when joy 

comes true. 
And is, just then, most beautiful; so, 

might 
Each prisoned deep be sorrow, that breaks 

through; 
Breathes; out-heavens heaven; sings; 

laughs — -and dies. 
15 



When the blue sea Is bitten with sharp 

wind, 
And gathers panic even as it goes, 
Right to the southward, bellowing its woes 
To the bare sky, I wonder if some mind 
There be not, far to land but intertwined 
With it, that crying, southward also flows, 
And in the swaying of a garden rose 
Leans beyond years to a lost love behind. 
And when the sea-light gradually dies 
From wave to wave, a grieving wanderer. 
It is, then, unto me, as if there came 
The quiet aching in a young lad's eyes — 
Expectant eyes, all glowing with young 

flame — 
Who sees his first love fade, and does not 

stir. 



17 



VI 



A blink of sunlight on the cabin floor; 
A scouring-out of port-holes with wet sea ; 
Laughter on deck; a song along the lee; — 
The ships, the old, old ships, are young 

once more : 
Younger than Nineveh, younger than the 

shore 
Of blue-beguiled Iberia, or free, 
Imperial Knossos, skilled in victory; — 
Younger than these, yet olden long before. 
Butting the head-seas, joyous, once again, 
They clew close down and let their scup- 
pers run 
With gusty music-chucklings, and bright 

foam. 
After them ! — follow them 1 — galleon 

fleets of Spain, 
Beaks from the North, and triremes of 

great Rome ! — 
Reached not the Happy Islands? — ^none? 

Not one. 

19 



VII 

Like music stilled, that very far away, 
Goes treading, in the foot-prints of a tune; 
Or like pale twilight, sad for afternoon 
Lost, it was comrades with but could not 

stay; 
There is a singing waked, a gleam of day 
Divine and dying, when the romantic moon 
Walks with the lonely sea; a radiance 

strewn 
Of some great passing, none can mourn 

as they. 
Love is remembrance, an aroma rare 
Of some dear, doorway guest, who, hard- 
ly known, 
Smiled, and went on (we will not say, 

who died) ; 
Leaving her semblance on a turning stair, 
Forever after, tender — amid stone. 
Sea; moon; a third? Nay! — ^there is none 
beside. 



21 



VIII 

When love has lost, it does not trouble 

long 
With the reproachful deep, but looses rein 
To leeward of the first free wind; astrain 
For shallows and the oblivion of strong. 
Indignant reefs, obstreperous in song. 
It will not bear the brooding night 

again, — 
The starlit tides that tore its heart in 

twain; 
But breaks upon the beach its time-old 

wrong. 
Love that has lost will build itself a fire 
On cliffs of unrived rock; will sleep on 

stone. 
And scoop the flint for water from the sky : 
Betrayed, it spurns the sea, forswears de- 
sire. 
And rid of dreams will henceforth live and 

die. 
A flower-root fills a crack; and peace is 

flown. 

23 



IX 



A flower to tell the wind with, lightly; yet 
So prinked in purple, printed so with blue 
Of the real sky (love's token to bestrew 
With sky) as might, from a proud para- 
pet. 
Lord it on leagues of roses; newly met. 
Out of white dreams of unenduring dew 
Awakened — proof enough; the world is 

new — 
Open my heart, now; take this violet? 
But, pain of passing, pictured in its face 
The very heaven it holds is still too high, 
A hand's breadth, to be climbed to; still 

too far 
For more than wanting of; this flower, this 

place 
Eternal, by one touch of beauty, are. 
And will not fade: it is I that must die. 



25 



X 



When on warm fields the bloom goes wan- 
dering, 

And little woodland paths let in the May; 

When throats of song have lips of apple- 
spray, 

And down long twilights drift the stars of 
spring; — 

Perverse I am! — it were a happy thing 

To brush one petal cheek, and end there: 
they. 

Blithe birds and flowers, are free; I go 
alway, 

Cinctured with shadows of remembering. 

Love should not wear so beautiful a smile, 

When life can look beyond it in a year: 

Lilacs, returning, speak the gentleness 

The last ones gave, forgotten for a while. 

The lovely last ones ! — they too lived, no 
less; 

Now are no more ; then joy is not just here. 



27 



XI 



By token of red leaves that wrinkle brown, 
And harvest stocks in phalanx of rich 

gold ; 
By lakes dark-ruffled with marauding cold 
(That slept, and now the lily-pads turn 

down) ; 
By its own just, infallible renown, 
When Autumn signals, being very bold, 
I answer: '^'Hasten, monarch, and take 

hold! 
Wreathe white with frost: wear the great 

sunset crown!" 
Then, seeing Summer's pained, reproach- 
ful eyes 
Turned backward down the distance of a 

glade. 
Her hands unclasping flowers and letting 

fall, 
Her pace dejected as of one who tries 
No longer to win happiness at all, 
Joy is struck dead, for knowing her be- 
trayed. 

29 



XII 

Like as an arrow, loosed against the night, 
Impales Capella of the Charioteer, 
Or lunges into Perseus like a spear, 
Proud and predominant in upward flight. 
Then, ere a single star has bloomed more 

bright, 
Feels courage dwindle, die, and disappear; 
So love leaps up, and so, in heaven's tier. 
Tainted with earth, slips backward from 

delight. 
There is a waywardness belying bliss, 
A warp against the current of all joy; 
A knock, inimical, upon the door. 
Forbidding rapture; a dark precipice 
That, cross who may, will not let laughter 

o'er; — 
A canker seeking rose-buds to destroy. 



31 



XIII 

Spirits there are, intuitively great, 

Who will not own the serfdom of desire. 

But when the cinders of their first-blown 

fire 
Cease to be stars, and rain down desolate, 
Rise up, go forth, and eye to eye with fate. 
Of common, coarse-cut stone and tight- 
strung wire 
Make statues that are god-heads, and a 

lyre 
Whose lifted song long years reverberate. 
They hate the little limits that hedge in 
Joy, and the narrowness of each new day; 
Despise old gifts, and out of raw defeat 
Rear their own heaven's roof for dreams 

to win; 
Making obeisance at a Mercy Seat 
Never more earth's. Then they too pass 
away. 



33 



XIV 

As on cold window-glaze the sunset burns, 
Beyond a strait where grey-plumed sea- 
birds cry, 
So, in carved sepulchres, the great dead lie 
Illuminate, long after funeral urns 
Have spilled their dust on centuries; re- 
turns 
Forever, so, a glory down the sky, — 
A lyric gladness each brave soul spread 

high, 
One stave above the stature thought dis- 
cerns. 
Almost it is as if another air 
Were round these relics, full of cloudy 

gold 
And twilight tints, a different place and 

time, — 
Sequestered, like a quiet sea-cove, where 
Waves become dreams, and booming 

rocks, the chime 
Of distant church-bells indolently tolled. 
35 



XV 

Not differently to-day ^gean blue 

Edges long-silent Hellas with sweet sound; 

The night wind wanders inland and is 
drowned 

In just such groves as faned Apollo knew. 

Where went that art which anciently could 
hew 

Stones into beauty lifted from this ground 

Such length of dreams? Something is lost 
they found, 

A moon-beam's breadth beyond men's 
grasp that grew. 

They found: the hungry, out-of-heart, who 
spent 

One shoulder's heave at heaven, and 
passed on, — 

Up the dim thrust their yearning columns 
gave, 

Athwart the calm of pure-browed pedi- 
ment 

And straight-lipped truth of stringent arch- 
itrave, — 

Unto their goal; leaving — the Parthenon. 
37 



XVI 

Death is the deathless flower when loved 

ones die; 
Containing them in sweetness out of 

time ; — 
The lotus-lily breathed up by this slime, 
In whose deep cup our tears of longing lie 
And mirror on remembrance, as the sky 
Is caught in fountains tinkling in clear 

chime — 
Each drop a ripple and each tear a 

rhyme — 
Blurred and becalmed but never quite put 

by. 

Yet even here is beauty that still fades, 
As, leaf by leaf, the fresh-cut coronal 
Fades, and the li^ht fades, and stars, and 

April snows. 
Oh, bubble dome and dreaming colon- 
nades; 
Young Shah Jehan, young love and death- 
less rose; 
Ganges and bodies and white Taj Mahal ! 
39 



XVII 

Pilate said: "What is truth?" Death an- 
swered him; 

And Druid blocks and dolmens of strange 
stone, 

Once wet with blood, were dry and lichen- 
grown. 

Because death answered him. Then, in 
the dim 

North twilight, brooding bent-browed by 
the brim 

Of long-aisled forests, lifted-up, alone, 

Men dreamed, and lo, the Gothic, and the 
blown, 

Exhilarant wings, roofing, of cherubim. 

Beneath the minster towers what hymns 
have rolled; 

How rich in prayers alluvial it stands, 

The kindle on it still of dragon fire, — 

Of crescent flames and Christ-crossed 
shields of gold! 

Beauty unhelmed her here, as knight to 
sire, 

Once. Saith the spirit: "Temples not 
made with hands." 
41 



XVIII 

Now proudly to the sea-front once again 
Love presses, leaving heedlessly behind 
Her house, her garden, all her kith and 

kind, 
For trouble that her heart has, for pure 

pain 
Deep down within her, when the hot, gold 

grain 
Gathers cool shadows from the billowy 

wind ; — 
Athirst she is, and stumbles headlong, 

blind, 
To thrust her forehead seaward in dis- 
dain. 
And there, upon the brink, she bides at 

last, 
Her dreams but at beginnings, her whole 

sea 
Only the singing borderland of sound. 
How, nearly flown, earth-tied through 

ages past. 
Beauty still baffles her, yet breathes her 

round ; — 
Headless, sans arms, defeated Victory I 
43 



XIX 

When Da Vinci painted his Gioconda, so, 
He verged by stealth on Beauty's holiness, 
And would have had her naked truth, un- 
less. 
Just as he came she had not chanced to go; 
Leaving him staggered, all his heart aglow 
With one, arch, backward look, one veiled 

caress, 
And one pale instant of the prophetess, — 
Blended and blinded in one smiling No. 
He wrote that smile along his lady's lips. 
Indelible, unfading; — flowerlike, rare 
And momentary mouth ! Winds have gone 

by, 

Bearing baled merchandise on old-world 

ships 
Into a listening, luminous, lost sky. 
Lady, dead lady, art thou also there? 



45 



XX 

Artist and canvas, fancier of dreams 
Disintegrate in moonlight, reader mild 
Of countenances, wonder-drinking child 
Poring upon wind whimsies, and the 

gleams 
Of leafy sunlight fallen down dark 

streams; — 
In all his ways how elfish and wood-wild, 
How deep in contemplation, but beguiled 
By each least glint how liberally, he seems. 
For hurt of beauty ebbing at the brim. 
Even as lips approach it, he makes prayer 
Of painting, offers his uplifted eyes 
For just one chink of heaven to hold for 

him; 
And, haply, has it, ours forever, there. 
He fails, though, for all that. Beauty still 

dies. 



47 



XXI 

In texture of deep tides that thwart and 
bind, 

Dumb and imprisoned under weighty woe, 

Until an ocean heaves, and great waves go, 

Heart-sobbing, into exile; then, all shined 

With muted moonlight, reaching into 
blind. 

Long-quiet coves, on wet sands weeping 
low; — 

Plead, violins; impassioned trumpets, 
blow ! — 

Music her mantle dons; earth fades be- 
hind: 

And Love, in dreams, besieges empty halls 

For that desired and dear one, gone be- 
fore, 

Whose old-rose fragrance lingers, like a 
sky 

Misleading stars. How hauntingly she 
calls 

Into the darkness where faint footsteps 
die! 

Poor fool; in vain. They pass that way 
no more. 

49 



XXII 

Clad in a song, with loops of early flowers 
Lavished about her shoulders, Poetry, 

maid 
Of bird-like mimicry and escapade, 
Tilts her top notes on wafts of petal 

showers. 
Or, maenad in the moonlight, overpowers. 
With frolic mirth, a melancholy glade : 
A little weary, then, prone in the shade, 
Saddens a tune with crowns and crumbled 

towers. 
But see her in her age, her bloom all spent. 
Her wreaths of April withered and awry. 
Sitting with hands meek-folded, eyes afar. 
In tragedy of truth made evident; — 
Speaking plain words in quiet, till a star 
Completes her contemplations with a sigh. 



51 



XXIII 

Words are to dreams a wired and golden 

cage 
Wherein, made captive, some enchanting 

bird 
Is listened to for music that is heard 
In wooded freedom only; or a page 
Of butterflies, wing-spread for pilgrimage. 
But never, never flying, nor bestirred 
By happy preference : each printed word 
A theft from youth, all overgrown with 

age. 
Remembrance of a momentary bliss, 
The flash of wings when Beauty crossed 

the blue ; — 
To speak — can arms encircle empty air 
And so enact the quiver of a kiss? 
Always that pain and always that despair: 
Yet there are hearts with singing all shot 

through. 



53 



XXIV 

One maiden knee emerging, one bared 

limb, 
Modelled Diana's own, nerved and astrain, 
A path of moonlight — Dancing breaks in 

twain 
The thousand ages gone. About the rim 
Are all earth's unspoiled children, dim 
And dear: she leads them forth again; 
Weaving round youth a joyous old re- 
frain, — 
An antic rhapsody of flute and hymn. 
So leaped they in the forests, long ago, 
And so grew languid, feeling love draw 

nigh. 
Oh, bounding blood, and shiver of young 

flame! — 
By touch of lips eternity to know; 
To clasp immortal wedlock without 

shame I 
The moment passes. We too? Yes, we 

die. 

55 



XXV 

A summer beach, warm drowsing; clean, 

wet sand 
With filling footprints ; boys and girls and 

sea. 
Here, hose and shoon discarded, rap- 

turedly 
They run the gauntlet; here, linked hand 

in hand, 
Adventure off their native bridge of 

land — 
Foam-deep to instep, ankle and then 

knee — 
To scurry home again in panic glee. 
With clothes caught high, and limbs all 

shining tanned. 
Beauty wafts inland. Love to seaward 

blows. 
And meeting, part, and parting, meet no 

more. 
One golden moment blended, they are 

still; 
In children, in the bud-break of a rose. 
The petals bloom, the childish zest burns 

chill: 
The wind is desolate upon the shore. 
57 



XXVI 

Is man a wave whose reach is not yet run? 
Will dreams surge higher after he has 

died? 
Take yonder youth poised at the trestle- 
side, 
Sans clothes, damp-haired, a poem of sea 

and sun; — 
Replaces his smooth breed a shaggier one? 
Will eagles' wings be some day deified? 
It may be. But more beautiful in pride 
Than this bright body is there shall be 

none. 
A heap of dust which any windy day 
Might hoard in one right-angle of brick 

wall ; — 
Ruins of time have crumbled out for this, 
And groping aeons ached their hearts 

away. 
Imperishable plan; frail edifice! — 
The tides turn seaward and the dead leaves 

fall. 

59 



XXVII 

Museum maunderings! A shelf of 

bones; — 
Old yellow skulls with matted hair and 

stain 
Of time's erosion; death's-heads with 

migraine, 
Set out to cool, so many fresh-cooked 

scones. 
What of them? Measurements; cephalic 

zones; 
The long and short of them? Nay! — but 

again 
To kindle here a burning human brain, — 
A flickering spirit — on these altar stones. 
Somewhat was here, snuffed out; some 

smouldering fire; 
Some incense not just earthly, so it seems. 
No mollusc this, a flaccid fill of shell, — 
But crowded to its roof-trees with de- 
sire. . . . 
Once through these windy corridors there 

fell 
The backward laughter of departing 

dreams. 

6i 



XXVIII 

Like as the straight blue sea curves round 

at last, 
And like as stars in open midnight lie 
Storied from bud to drooping, all gone-by 
Years but as naught, on that great curtain 

cast; 
So here, upon a shelf, time's toil spun fast. 
The drift shows; skull to skull is progress; 

cry 
Victories over victories, then die 
To nearer beauty, up the trudged-out past. 
There is a current speaks in human veins, 
Deeper than the proud pulse admits; a 

flow 
Unswerving; a repeated, farewell word, 
With ground-bass of great surges, life re- 
tains 
Dim memory of, from some far sea-coast 

heard. 
Adventure's morning, voiceless moons ago. 



63 



XXIX 

Unyielding ruins stretched in acrid smoke, 
Behold how Rheims, her beauty all laid 

bare, 
The lovelier for defacement, still more 

fair, — 
More heaven at heart for each new devil 

stroke. 
Outbraves her garments. What a tongue 

they spoke. 
Who, long since dead, could character, 

four-square. 
The great escutcheon of good courage 

there ; 
Firmer than granite, stalwart more than 

oak! 
And this rank skull, eyes empty, mouth 

agape, 
Mortality's residuary, found, 
Spilt-on by death, in some contemptuous 

ditch. 
More nobly than in life outdreams the ape 
By heights prefigured of; not reaching 

which, 
It sowed with faith the undisheartened 

ground. 

65 



XXX 

There Is a house, wide-elbowed, nudging 

trees, 
A hilltop under it, the friendly stain 
Grown over it, of wind and sun and rain; 
Whose door, swung open, gives on rev- 
eries. 
A garden sways behind it, of whose bees 
Are 'cello thrums; and indoors, the re- 
frain 
Of blundering flies upon a window-pane: 
But silence hangs the walls like draperies. 
Weathered without, drawn ghostly sweet 

within, 
Still, faint it vibrates an old music, still. 
An antique beauty lifted over years. 
Like waves in moonlight welling very thin 
At tide-turn: softly, to attentive ears, 
Frays out once more its long-gone good 
and ill. 



67 



XXXI 

Houses have hauntlngs, on warm after- 
noons 

Drowsy with sweet siesta, at the door 

No kindled voice, no footstep on the floor; 

Enmeshed in golden peace, the hushed 
heart swoons. . . . 

But draw the bow, once, gently — how the 
tunes. 

Imprisoned in the wood deep days before. 

Coax beauty out of quietude once more. 

With love and laughter, twilight and soft 
moons. 

Those wave-tops in the sunlight men call 
"souls," 

Whence comes it that they pattern on the 
mind 

This music? How print they here, un- 
worn, 

Their star-dipped path, on whom an ocean 
rolls ? 

Faint as dark echoes from wild crags for- 
lorn; 

Poor drift of dreams trailing so far be- 
hind! 

69 



XXXII 

It may be Beauty walks In widening rings 
Forever, Love's first colloquy the stone; 
Truth Is, perchance, the ebb-tide of the un- 
known, 
Laying old beaches bare of long-dead 

things; 
But life roots deep, and twenty thousand 

springs 
Suffice not for one garden fully grown: 
Dry drift of leaves; the birds' oak over- 
thrown ; — 
Next year the warbler In a new tree sings. 
Earth holds to life, impenitent of time 
Admitted — she a child then — once for all ; 
Dreaming past failure, up the precipice 
Where, niche by niche, her seedlings lodge 

and climb; 
Her splendid strivings strewing the abyss, 
Exultant in the few that did not fall. 



71 



XXXIII 

Youth first is April, mischievous, then 

May, 
From wink of dawn to waned-out after- 
noon 
Seated astride the earth, a singing tune 
All twinkled full of starlight, a flushed 

spray 
Of precious peach-bloom opened In a day. 
Come wind and rain, till all the walks are 

strewn 
With woful wreckage. Then, ah, then is 

June ; — 
And life, unlatticed, runs once more away. 
Despoiler of sweet petals, yet is pain 
A foot-sure pilot leading by the hand 
Love. Let the winds blow ! Ever beauty 

burns 
To richer regions than youth's bubbling 

vein! 
Say it — still change is loss; the chilled 

heart turns. 
Still, from the sea, to one last glow of 

land. 

73 



XXXIV 

Beauty has other thoughts than place or 

time; 
It is too winged for these clogged thor- 
oughfares, — 
Fades out too fleetingly for the slow airs 
Which wakeful autumn stirs with, when 

the rime 
Whitens the cheek of russet pantomime: 
(Gone; come and gone; the midmost of 

pied players, 
Its part gapes empty, almost unawares, 
While the great actor's cloak is praised 

sublime.) 
This earth is captive to the spacious dark. 
Gyved to the gusty pathways on which 

turn 
A myriad orbs evolving into night. 
On other ends that beauty must embark 
Which slantwise cuts the road in wavering 

flight, 
A butterfly — bent whither? Who shall 

learn? 

75 



XXXV 

Like singing in the sea-light, off the wane 
Of afternoon (when, weathered mainsails 

wide. 
The fishing fleet heads home, and overside 
Are chanties of the wet, entangled seine 
And shining catch in scuppers) is the pain 
Of Beauty's passage, wistfully de- 
scried ; — 
The music of a dream-entinctured tide 
On shadowy ships, and a far-held refrain. 
Remembrance if there be of Beauty's 

face, — 
A groping-back for blind, lost lineaments 
The heart aches over, half regathering. 
It trembles from no earthly hiding-place; 
Some deep oblivion yields it, ring on ring, 
Haunting horizons. . . . Whence? I 
know not whence. 



77 



XXXVI 

Love keeps the day — broken to stars — all 
night. 

There is such patience in it as prevails 

Beyond cool hours of sleep and sable sails 

To brimming basins of fresh morning 
light, 

And wearies-out the drip of death's de- 
spite 

Down world-old eaves. Love leans the 
scales 

That little from the level which yet quails 

The brow of Fate, the bronze and mala- 
chite. 

Love waits, great dreamer, and with face 
in hands 

Hears the faint moan of winds around the 
world. 

The lap of waves, the pebbles brooks wash 
bare. 

Heedful how slowly loose the swaddling 
bands 

From that hid future hovering in air; — 

Lily and leaf in one brown earth-bulb 
furled. 

79 



XXXVII 

Happy is cock-crow, heard at break of 

sleep 
In summer, lifting lids to the lulled room 
And little stir of curtains. What perfume 
Of flowers refreshed! — What drowsiness 

to keep ! 
(The reflex, floating seaward on the deep, 
Flutters the sails and swings the languid 

boom ; — 
So memory lives.) What gladness out of 

gloom 
To hear that clarion climb the starry steep ! 
There is no deep loss westward of the sun; 
The pained farewells of pensive afternoon 
Are not, at dawn : with childlike welcom- 
ing, 
Looked for unanxiously, the dower is done 
Of a whole world clipped in a golden ring. 
Not even beauty fades, yet; but will soon. 



8i 



XXXVIII 

Many a morning, leaf-like, has been 

strewn, 
Reluctantly, tiding a pleasant place; 
Many a night has ravelled into lace. 
Touched by the haunted fingers of the 

moon ; 
Another spring goes brook-down into June, 
And then will summer, then will autumn 

trace 
Their sweet, famihar by-paths: but her 

face 
Beauty holds hidden in one afternoon. 
(Life is so rare of level unisons, 
And love remembers in its dreams.) Not 

eyes 
It is, nor words, nor tremblings of the 

hand: 
Only — a far light dims, a long wave runs. 
And in the silence, after, through that 

land — 
Wings overhead, and little-bird replies. 
83 



XXXIX 

A swimmer in the sunrise, one wave's 

break 
I grope beneath bewilderment. The surge 
Wears thin: soon, soon, I shall emerge; — 
The blurring drops from my blear eye- 
lids shake; 
Rise to the next wave ; laugh, and be awake 
To that immediate colour of the verge, 
And golden call, whose dark, subaqueous 

urge 
Troubles me, now, so deeply, for love's 

sake. 
There is so much to seek! — so near behind 
This film the truth is ! Through this deep- 
sea trance 
Beauty falls flickering, bewitched, unsure; 
Life catches it, a sidling shell, pale, nacre- 
lined; 
While on the dim sand-floor lies dreaming 

— pure 
Love? Nay! — but broken light — love's 
variance. 

85 



XL 

When this blind now shall be the golden 
past, 

And blend with the warm haze on mellow- 
ing hills, — 

When reverie, looking into bygones, fills 

All the rude scars with gentler overcast, 

I wonder, in that landscape, fading fast, 

What tree, unnoted now, what common 
spills 

Of meadow bloom, what mere red-robin 
trills. 

Will be where Beauty hid — and hallowed, 
last? 

Eyes that are sad once mingled for her 
sake 

With tangled briars undertwined with 
fern. 

Or followed over fences her dusk hair 

Of dreams, and lost her. Swallow to a 
lake 

Will Beauty, skimming, mirror down? and 
where? 

Compelled by what bleak memory to re- 
turn? 

87 



XLI 

How strange it is ! — how throbs that night 
again; — 

Thick coppice, fevered brook, hot, haunted 
air, 

A soul at challenge, God's dark every- 
where. 

Why is it happier with that dried pain 

Than summer-longs of pleasure? Why re- 
main, 

Like flowers, the snowflakes of one morn- 
ing's care — 

Each step a sorrow — glowing now more 
fair 

Than all October's glories of ripe stain? 

As one who, being blinded, from the wars 
returns; 

Pursues old paths with cane-prods; clicks 
the gate. 

And, entering, goes groping through his 
hall, 

Heedless of portraits, prints and Chinese 
urns, 

To one hard chair — his boyhood's worst 
of all; 

So time, turned backward, chooses. Pain? 
— now? Wait! 

89 



XLII 

If it be true that flowers are very fair 
For sweet allure and tinctured marriage fee 
Of moon-white moth or brown, benignant 

bee 
With pollen on his back, and have no 

care — 
Despite a fragrance filling all the air — 
For such vain shapes of shadowland as 

we, 
Then in themselves they outreach artistry, 
And loved by one, are lovely everywhere. 
And we, warm human hearts, it may be, 

grow 
Beyond a beauty visiting on eyes 
For some desired endearing, to a power 
A thought more perfect than our pulses 

know: 
It may be in some slowly-opened hour, 
Bleeding at heart, we perfume Paradise. 



91 



XLIII 

Music there is, deeper than melody 
Of meadow brooks or dusk-blown serenade 
A creaking wagon comes on at up-grade 
Against the sunset, from shy woods won 

free 
By hidden hermit-thrushes; songs there be 
Whose based accompaniment no strings 

have played, 
Whose compass balks the seamost barri- 
cade. 
Where all the land is sung by all the sea : 
Beauty there is, beyond the glamorous 

foam 
Of apple-buds new breaking, or the stir 
A sudden star brings, rifting after rain. 
All ringed with drops from leaves, the 

quiet home 
Of water-lilies (Far it is and fain. 
And sad for beauty's sake), called Char- 
acter. 



93 



XLIV 

He was too beautiful for them to know. 

The face caught grief, the garments be- 
came mean; 

Brown market dust and he trudged dawns 
between 

And uttered drouth at nightfall; to and 
fro, 

An uproar after him — he wrought out so. 

Youth went away, down distant pastures 
green ; 

Joy died; friends perished; death must in- 
tervene. 

He was too beautiful: they did not know. 

Music twines wreaths for heart-aches that 
are dead; 

From marble limbs immortal longings fall; 

Still lifts Medea's outcry to her loss; 

The Parthenon is still unravished. 

That life-blood soaking into that rough 
cross 

Outlives, and is the loveliest of all! 
95 



XLV 

Who left his hilltop in a glow of sky 
For the dim road, forgiving fate its frown, 
Enhungered after disesteemed renown. 
That artless poor man with the laughing 

eye, 
Who preached his brother birds, and 

charmed so high, 
He drew the proud marks of redemption 

down ; — 
The golden belfries of that sunset town 
Are beautiful because his life passed by: 
Because he, gayheart, dreamed in morning 

dew. 
And said his prayers to flower-buds, or 

told 
Sweet drowsy beads on stars looped over- 
head; 
Loving, the whole while; loving ... as 

have few. 
Assisi ages; sunsets fade their gold; — 
The world will never own Saint Francis 

dead. 

97 



XLVI 

Because he loved the truth he died unspent, 

Whose blade caught sky with every logic 
stroke, — 

Whose laughter kindled tears, whose brave 
arch broke 

The cracked, false roof-beam of a conti- 
nent: 

Wherever Lincoln looked a new earth 
went, 

Hewn clean with kindness, built of com- 
mon folk 

Persuaded to be loving — so he spoke, 

And so himself lived, simply, what he 
meant. 

Here, forest clearings filled, there, rail- 
roads flung, 

Still, thewed with dreams of her dear 
deathless dead. 

She travails, she who was his proud desire. 

Keeping his beauty with a guarded tongue. 

Cold, do they say she is; unvoiced of fire; 

No singer? She gave time a man instead. 
99 



XLVII 

I know not if a better bloom there be 
Than this rough earth gives, being trodden 

down 
By wager of young feet in death's renown, 
On shining fields of breathless bravery: 
Unless it were some tight-lipped loyalty 
Drudging its days out in a home-spun 

gown; 
Tasting each drop of life's most bitter 

brown, 
And humming all the while, heart-break- 

ingly. 
There is an answer, sworn to with the eyes. 
For every hint of Beauty's querying. 
Required, young loss? — a life is flung 

away ; 
Sorrow? — a heart is forfeit and hope dies 
By inches; faith? — how beautiful are they 
That round a wounded cause come rally- 
ing! 



lOI 



XLVIII 

One star is lit, and a whole sea is burned: 

There are no depths too deep for that 
small shine 

To shadow into ; no such anodyne 

Of darkness, patiently interned, 

As drowns the hurt of loveliness discerned 

And just not taken. Lips with lips com- 
bine; 

Hearts echo hearts — the lost is the di- 
vine — 

(How know they beauty, never having 
learned?) 

Vainly. Yet, wistful hands, not all in vain ! 

Outreached in starlight, something have 
you; flung 

To flowering sunset fields, no less a fire 

Ruddies within you; searched with narrow 
pain, 

Not knowingly new altars you have hung: 

Beauty is born of Beauty's own desire. 



103 



XLIX 

Eternity walks with us, stride for stride, 
Once in so rarely, bending down to see 
Our broken gaze of fuddled infancy 
Drowned in a buttercup, or walling wide 
Upon two daisies: suddenly espied, 
Goes out in wonderment and faery 
We catch the wild of, knowing it to be 
Something remembered, half, and loved 

beside. 
By this we learn our lineage ; by this 
Made proud, old doubts repudiate. 
And henceforth move upon hereafters, 

given. 
Like dreamers in their dreams, an artifice 
Of slow awakening, that not yet shriven. 
Has hold of life, and mocks dissolving 

fate. 



105 



Not in the pith and marrow of men's 

bones; 
Not in the blood, nor pencilled on the 

brain; 
A voice, yet not well heard; a dream, not 

plain; 
A music, intermingled with deaf tones; — 
There is an urge that enters in and owns 
Beyond the power of putting off again. 
A calling in the night, a stir of pain, 
Unrest and exile up wild mountain lones : 
There is a fealty affirmed so far, 
The adverse cunnings of a wintry sky 
Adread it not; it is too stout for fate. 
And is undaunted of men's eyes. They are 
Brief, life; frail, flesh; not good are we, 

nor great; — 
Show us where Beauty went, for she 

passed by! 



107 



LI 



Hereafter. ... Is it death to fall awake 
Upon a darkness blown like sleeves be- 
hind? 
Death, to knot loose this mummer's 

masque of mind, 
And lave in naked truth as in a lake? 
Childlike, submissive, sweet it were to take 
The bedtime candle drowsily, and, bhnd. 
Stumble up stairs, hugging a toy, to find 
Love and Hereafter soft-eyed for one's 

sake. 
But here . . . there is a valley here; a 

rearguard goes 
Through crimson cleft of crags in deepen- 
ing shade. 
Here there is tryst of battle brunt to bear. 
While, peak to peak, a sobbing bugle 

blows 
Beauty's betrayal. (Hewn and hacked-off 

blade. 
They shall not pass!) Roland is riding 
there. 

109 



LII 

Spring almost seems more beautiful than 
Spring, 

This year. The swampy wood-track green- 
ly goes 

Against cross-currents of sharp white or 
rose; 

Knee-deep the hillsides are; the orchards 
fling 

Shadow and song and foam of blossom- 
ing. 

Warmth of the tall sun; petals that un- 
close ! — 

Almost it seems that lightfoot Nature 
knows, 

And weaves her love-dance in a dizzier 
ring. 

But Spring this year is alien; her fire 

Fumes into flames but has no heat to burn: 

We are as onlookers at some strange rout. 

Outlandish, under minaret and spire. 

Unreal it is ; we kneel not. Shut it out ! — 

Flare up, harsh frost, instead; stript fields, 
return I 

III 



LIII 

Great winds are out: havoc is in the trees. 
So be it. Snuff the stars; unslip the rain; 
Let ruin run like blood. In vain, in vain! 
Comes courage in its cockle-boat, and keys 
Its pigmy voice above catastrophes, — 
Singing immortally its old disdain 
Of sudden death, enrapturing again 
Doom's ramparts with a choir of Victories. 
How beautiful that music is! How warm 
It strikes the heart! It is like reaching 

hands 
That grope beyond the stars, with faith to 

find. 
Happiness? Nay, I know not. As the 

storm. 
The singing gathers. Pain? He under- 
stands 
Who drinks of it. There is a dream be- 
hind! 



"3 



LIV 

I had a dream, once — was it lives ago? 
Beauty, the followed after, the first glint 

that went 
From charmed horizons of blue seas, was 

pent 
At last, a butterfly, and gazed on; so. 
Proven but Love, the abashed yet leaning 

low 
From sky-tops in grave woods, or deeply 

blent, 
In apple-blooms, with that old merriment. 
Sipped like a fragrance, dead worlds used 

to know. 
All is not loss : there is a dream behind. 
Made pitiful by loving. Death and pain 
Deter not, but are climbed upon; the hour 
Breaks; the dream lives. It fades not; it 

will find I 
(I fling me prone before one startled 

flower. 
Breathless, and love's pursuit goes on 

again.) 

"5 



LV 

A factory in the fields, whose windows 

flare 
Unearthly, once a sundown; a drab door 
A blue-eyed barefoot sits and laughs be- 
fore; 
A whistle down the railroad, going 

where ? — 
So dreams begin. It is not far, nor rare, 
Yet tasting of it is to drink no more 
Sleep, or soothed limbs, or drowsy man- 

dragore : 
But heartaches, and hurt fingers — these 

are there. 
The wind has need of us; the violets blow 
One hillslope yonder — still the old en- 
deavour! 
Youth calls, and happiness is just ahead! 
Who lives to it? — the lonely wanderers 

know. 
There is a beauty, after all is said — 
And after all is sung — unreached forever. 
117 



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